Google Will Ban Cryptocurrency Ads, To The Chagrin Of Your Most Annoying Cousin

It’s going to be a little bit harder to pump and dump your beverage company stock by adding cryptocurrency terms to the business name, because tech companies are starting to crack down on shady blockchain ads. Facebook banned cryptocurrency ads in January, although some people took advantage of loopholes by misspelling terms (spelling Dogecoin with a zero instead of an O, for example). Now Google is following suit, announcing a ban on several types of financial ads, including ads for cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and cryptocurrency related products like cryptocurrency wallets and advice services. The ban will go into effect in June, and a Google spokesperson told Bloomberg they will be watching out for the loopholes Facebook missed.

We’ve made plenty of jokes about cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (as has John Oliver), but they’re also incredibly volatile — bitcoin was 600 percent more volatile than gold in 2017 — and have the potential to burn through quite a few resources (monetary and environmental) in the irrational exuberance of, well, a certain type of person…